


Sandfall

by Skaapsteker



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: F/M, No Dialogue, Synesthetic Character, inverted light/darkness metaphors, this is pretty sad but gets a little better at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 01:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16295594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaapsteker/pseuds/Skaapsteker
Summary: The power of the three moons could not be neatly contained within the Brightest Night, and Whiteout happened to hatch in the splash radius.





	Sandfall

It was common knowledge that the full moons gave power, with more moons equalling more power. Whiteout believed in the theory that the tripled moons in particular were so powerful that their light spilled a claw’s width out of the bounds of time, splashing fragments of perception over the dragonets hatched in the vicinity of their night.  
Everyone had thought she was powerless, that that theory was just a superstitious rumour. But their disbelief didn’t stop Whiteout from sensing the background hum of other’s psyches, vague clouds of emotions always in the background of everything that sometimes sharpened to a momentary flash of insight. And it sure didn’t stop her from glimpsing prospects for the future, brushing against her mind on a semi-frequent basis. They were never all-consuming like visions or prophecies, and she didn’t dream of them like some dragons did - they were just realizations, thoughts that were not thoughts, that caught her mind’s eye like a gem reflecting the moonlight.  
Whiteout had known ever since she could remember that Brother was going to fall in love with Clearsight, a prophet hatched on a supermoon whose spirit sang in shades of brilliant blue. She’d had ages before she met Clearsight to build a little friendship in her head.  
Since she was one and a half, she had known that Brother was going to do something terrible someday, that he would shoot a ray of searing light and fracture the meaning of the night. The realization left her shaking even though she couldn’t see what would happen, but she found slight solace in the fact that whatever would happen, she wasn’t the target. No hybrid-violet flood of life, just a collateral heartbreak. When she saw the soul reader and learned how it worked, she knew that one day the white sand would far outweigh the black.  
One morning when she was quite a bit older, Whiteout realized that her mother wouldn’t come back, that she would stay in the gelid land and straddle the line between life and death for many years to come. The glimpse seized her heart and twisted it, arteries straining and ripping, bringing a despaired, endless cry out of her. It was a haze after that - she could vaguely remember Arctic yelling and grumbling at her, but in the moment nothing mattered but her own despair. Finally, Brother came, and even with the whitening of the sand that she could feel inside of him, Whiteout was relieved. The world came back like a river flowing in slow motion.  
He hugged her, and then she got another glimpse, this one with a profound sensation of distance that she had never felt before and would only feel once more in her life. It was far, far, so far away, but Mother was still alive at the end of it, and so was Brother. The ice was melting around her, and as the land sunk beneath the waves Foeslayer met Darkstalker again - but to what end?  
She told him, choked out her prophecy, and she wondered later if she’d carved out the path of his life then and there.

Thoughtful was a nice shade in her life, someone who loved her and shared some of her unusual traits. He had colour-emotion-vision like her, and he could understand when her speech veered into complex metaphors that only she could previously comprehend. She knew that, whatever came after, he’d be with her through all of it, helping her through the day into a new night. She also knew that Father would try to pull them apart, cut into her and take the soft white that her heart mapped to Thoughtful and paste it to an IceWing noble instead.  
But it wasn’t meant to be.  
Though maybe it might’ve been better if it was.  
As she broke free of the spell, whiteness returning to its proper association, she sensed the sand in Brother begin to bleach itself quicker and more furiously than it had ever done before. As they made the flight back home, Whiteout knew that Father’s path, and the path of life as she knew it, was nearing its end. Maybe in another world they’d all be able to turn back, but alas, now the path was an avalanche roaring down a steep mountainside, and there was nothing left to do but wait for it to stop.  
That day was the last time she saw any of them again - well, with her eyes anyway. Arctic’s avalanche ended in a pool of hideous blue on a public stage, and Clearsight and Darkstalker flew off shortly after. The only one she had left was Thoughtful, and as they cried, Whiteout wondered if the torrent of forest-green pouring out of everything would ever stop.

As the NightWings searched en masse for a new home, Whiteout spent most of the journey next to Thoughtful. Sometimes other dragons would come near and taunt her, telling her that she was evil like Brother was and that Thoughtful was a fool for loving her. She tried her best to ignore it, and Thoughtful did his best to defuse the situation.   
But a doubt begin to eat at her - what if she’d been able to stop Brother’s sand from changing colour? What if fate was changeable?  
Oh, well. Too late for that, anyway.

The new Night Kingdom was built on a volcanic island in a northern sea. It was much colder than the old kingdom had ever been, and the smoke filled the sky and caught in the lungs. Queen Vigilance had made sure that the future held no prophets, no mind-readers, and no animi. Most times, she and Thoughtful stayed in their cave, painting together - he’d left behind all his glassblowing equipment.  
When their dragonets hatched, Whiteout had her second and last distant vision. One of her dragonets, little Aurora, was going to have an animus dragonet one day. It would be a new dynasty- they might have to keep it quiet at first, but sooner or later the environment would grow so harsh that it’d be welcomed. And then, one day, so very far away, one of Aurora’s distant progeny would produce a small dragonet with scales as gold as surprise, and that dragonet would save all of Pyrrhia as illogical light shone down on the desert.  
Whiteout smiled a little. A beautiful impact was to come.


End file.
